Jobless increase shaping up as Turnbull’s biggest failure

The rise in unemployment to 5.8 per cent reflects the failure of the Liberal-National government to have any plan for full time jobs growth in the industry and service sectors, Greens industry spokesperson Senator Lee Rhiannon said.

“Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s lack of leadership on the critical issue of job creation and infrastructure investment is shaping up to be the PM’s major failing. By ignoring industries in transition he is cursing communities with rising unemployment,” Greens industry spokesperson Senator Lee Rhiannon said.

“The ABS jobless figures are deeply troubling. National employment growth was only 0.8 per cent last year. In 2015 it was 2.6 per cent.

“NSW, the PM’s home state, was the stand out poor performer with only 1100 new jobs created in 2016.

“These figures do not reveal the extent of the hardship many are suffering. Young people are particularly hard hit with unemployment around 20 per cent in some areas.

“Turnbull is incapable of giving leadership on jobs growth.

“The Liberal-National parties constituency is corporate Australia and they want to protect what they believe is their right to sack workers and casualise their workforce as a way to maximise profits.

“Australia should be a jobs rich country. Increased resources should be allocated to public vocational education and training run by TAFE to train young workers and retrain manufacturing workers.

“The clean energy economy remains the area for huge jobs growth. This would be particularly significant for regional areas previously reliant on coal fired power such as the Hunter and Geelong.

“Australia could learn from the Michigan experience. This US city managed its post-GFC recovery by expanding clean energy production which employed more than 76,000 workers,” Senator Rhiannon said.